Murder in the Pettah: Jeanne Cambrai

Published by Penguin, 2001, 483 pages. The body of a young English woman is found in the Pettah—a disreputable part of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Not a place where you would wander around at night. So what was the young woman, Dorothy Bell, doing in the Pettah? Who killed her? Dorothy’s father, Reginald Bell, a wealthy …

Continue reading Murder in the Pettah: Jeanne Cambrai

On the Trail of Crime around the World

Photo: FU via Adobe Stock Crime fiction has consistently been one of the most popular genres—in 2014, around one in three novels published in English was a crime novel.[1] What makes this genre so popular? For one, the plot is a puzzle, challenging the reader to guess who done it—which was what first attracted me …

Continue reading On the Trail of Crime around the World